Asian pre paid debit card market
Debit cards have the strongest potential to grow in the Asia-Pacific region over the next decade, according to Howard Allen, CEO of the Lafferty Group, a supplier of data and analysis on more than 60 credit-card markets worldwide. In many markets, he said, credit-card markets had matured or reached saturation, seen in declining margins for issuers due to growing price competition. Worldwide, the growth of debit-card usage over the past few years has doubled that of credit cards. The debit-card market has room to grow in the Asian region due to its currently low base. Mr Allen said ATMs would continue to grow in the region thanks to its large network while money-transfer services have strong potential China, Philippines and India due to remittances from their nationals in the US and UK.
"The golden age of the credit-card market may have gone. It is profitable if done well. If it is done in the wrong usiness cycle, it can have a detrimental impact on the economy, as in what happened in Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong," Mr Allen said. Growth opportunities for consumer credit are also inconsistent across the region. Consumer-credit growth in China is constrained by price competition, but Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have room to expand.
Mr Allen said the giro system was a significant player in the bill-payment market, due to its high technology and cost advantages. He noted that non-bank institutions had been competitive players in the consumer-finance market, butcommercial banks would likely dominate at the end of the day as they offer comprehensive services to customers. In addition, the said, he regional consumer market remained fragmented as the degrees of market forces and how they acted differed among countries.
